


the wind talks back (and you, my love, are gone)

by Sylv



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Mentions of self-harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-22
Updated: 2013-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-05 10:24:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1092776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sylv/pseuds/Sylv
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He doesn’t keep track and he still knows, every day when he opens his eyes in the morning, exactly how long it has been since he lost Emma Swan.</p><p>Killian Jones in the year after the end of the world, and the people that he maybe comes to care about.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the wind talks back (and you, my love, are gone)

**Author's Note:**

> I highly suggest listening to The Chain by Ingrid Michaelson, which besides being a song that very much reminds me of Killian and his pining, is where I got the title from.

Killian knows what hundreds of years feel like. Knows how to count them by staring down at the bottom of an empty bottle of rum, in the number of people that he’s seen the light go out of their eyes. Knows how to count them by refusing to pay attention.

 

He doesn’t keep track and he still knows, every day when he opens his eyes in the morning, exactly how long it has been since he lost Emma Swan.

 

;;

 

He trails after them like a lost puppy, and realizes just how pathetic he must look to an outsider. Eyes wide, hand grasping outwards like if he can touch pieces of what she loved, he can touch her too.

 

He wanders the castle when everyone else is busy, running his fingers over the stone walls, noticing how they fit together snugly, brushing the tapestries that have been pulled out of storage rooms on the lower levels and dusted off, hung once again.

 

Killian has walked these halls often enough that he’s sure he leaves bits of himself in the steps, that he wears down a familiar path as he winds his way. He has never actually been in this castle before; other castles, but this one is Emma’s. Should be Emma’s.

 

Inevitably he finds himself in the room that no one is allowed to touch despite the push for renovations; some things must remain in stasis, the royal couple insists. Do not enter this room.

 

It has been Snow’s own personal mission, to fix it up. He finds her in the nursery, adding a new coat of paint to the broken crib, hanging the mobile over the threadbare blanket inside of it. She doesn’t turn him away; she never turns him away. He suspects that she somehow knows when he is coming.

 

So he helps. He can lift wardrobes and cabinets that she cannot, and together they fix the curtains, sweep the floor, clear away the debris left from the aftermath of the curse and the looters that arrived after. It takes longer than he would have expected. Snow wants everything to be perfect, just like new, and Killian discovers that he agrees.

 

When they finish, weeks after the sudden arrival back in the Enchanted Forest, both are covered in dust and sweat. The windows are thrown open and light streams into the spacious room, highlights the corners and sharp edges of furniture, dances with dust mites that escaped their feverish cleaning.

 

“Thank you,” says Snow, and he shrugs because he can’t manage to say anything to her, not when he looks at her and sees the dimness of her eyes when he is sure his look the same.

 

They do not move for a long time. Killian follows her with his eyes as she slowly paces the room, touching here and there. She looks back at him and says, “When she gets here, this will be her room again. She can do whatever she wants with it. But, for now…”

 

There is no finishing that sentence because it would sound something like _we will remember her like this, because she is never coming back._ His heart clenches, and the sunlight feels cold.

 

Snow lays a hand on his arm and lifts up on her toes to brush a soft kiss against his cheek. Killian’s eyes flutter shut just for a moment, and something happens in his chest that feels like fingers cracking ribs.

 

It’s hard to breathe.

 

Snow is gone when he comes back to himself, and he thinks he might miss her.

 

;;

 

He calls the man Charming because using names as defenses are something he is good at. The prince doesn’t seem to mind, or even notice when Killian drops down into a seat next to him and pretends to be interested in the map he is poring over.

 

While Snow looks broken in a soft, slow way, David looks the way Killian feels—hard, shattered pieces. There are circles like dark bruises under his eyes, and he has picked up the tic of drumming his fingers against whatever surface happens to be closest. He’s thinner, leaner, like he has not been eating and practicing with his sword far too often.

 

Killian sees her in the way he tilts his head in concentration, the stubborn set of his shoulders when facing a problem. It’s most noticeable when his eyebrows draw down and he holds his sword out towards Killian, a silent, tired challenge.

 

Killian has yet to beat him during their sparring, but he has been drawing steadily closer.

 

Charming thrusts and parries like he breathes the metal, and it’s difficult to keep up sometimes when the darkness reaches his eyes and the onslaught becomes more than just a parody of a real fight. He disarms Killian with a twist of his wrist, the sword skittering away over the packed dirt of the yard, and presses the sword into the flesh of his neck.

 

“Well done, Charming.”

 

They’re both panting, chests heaving, muscles wound tight. Killian doesn’t back down first, and wonders what would happen if he leaned forward suddenly enough that the prince didn’t have a chance to pull away.

 

They lean against the fence and pass a canteen of water between them. Killian’s eyes drag over his face as he drinks and notices the wrap of his lips around the opening. Just like his daughter’s.

 

“Again,” says Charming once they have both had their fill. “Pick up your sword. Again.”

 

He switches his grip, and Killian feels a spike of anger when the fingers of David’s other hand wrap around the hilt.

 

;;

 

It is Tink who finds him nursing the bottle of booze he snagged from the kitchens close to his chest, out in the gardens. He curses when he remembers that this is where she has chosen to spend most of her time when she isn’t conferring with the other fairies, but does not move when she comes over and sits next to him.

 

“Hook,” she says, and he raises bleary eyes to meet her gaze which holds something sympathetic maybe, something knowing and frustrating and open.

 

When he doesn’t answer she tugs the bottle from his grip, and he is about to protest until she takes a swig of it herself, a shudder running through her body as the fire spreads through her veins.

 

She hands it back to him and he licks his lips.

 

They pass it back and forth until it is empty, and Killian is morbidly fascinated when he realizes that he has never seen a drunken fairy before. She seems to lose control like most do after drinking, but her lax reactions means a bright green glow about her body, twinkling specks of magic that zing on his skin if they land on him.

 

“I thought drinking was supposed to solve all your problems,” she says to him, and he hitches up a humorless smirk.

 

“No; it lies to you instead.” Through the haze of more alcohol than he has imbibed in a long time, he can almost convince himself that he hates her, the girl with the blonde curls and the green eyes, and he tells Tink so.

 

She laughs at him. He likes that; she is the only one who ever does.

 

;;

 

The one person who is possibly more despondent than he, is Baelfire. The man refuses to change out of his Storybrooke clothing, which is tattered and dirty now, and lies in bed most days, staring at the ceiling.

 

Killian remembers when he was small, so small that he could be lifted up onto his shoulders to be closer to the sky, and would eagerly wake up in the mornings to learn how to navigate the stars, to clean and sail the ship, to protect himself with the weapons at hand. There were many more things to teach when Bae—no, Baelfire—had decided he wanted to leave the ship. Killian had been loath to leave him alone and defenseless with Pan, but there was nothing to be done about it.

 

He insists on being called Neal now, when anyone has the inclination to check up on him. The prince and princess have regular times in their schedule when they visit, but they never linger long. Killian stays outside and leans against the wall until they come out again and he can follow them about once more.

 

He finds himself entering the room one day, alone, after having been in the nursery and felt as though he might crack and crumple down to the floor. Bae—Baelfire—Neal—is sitting by one of his windows, staring blankly out at the town that slopes down a gentle hill and ends at the port, opening up into the sea. Killian can’t look at the glittering water. There is something in him that mouths _betrayal._

Baelfire doesn’t seem surprised to see him, so Killian sits on the floor next to him, head below the sill so that he can’t see the ocean looking back at him. For the first time in months, he feels the inclination to begin a conversation.

 

“You look about as terrible as I feel, mate.”

 

When Bae finally looks around and meets his eyes, Killian knows it was the wrong thing to say. His knuckles are white clutching the arms of the chair he is in, and there are healing scabs, some wounds which look bad enough that they will scar, all over his hands.

 

He quickly tries a different tactic, hoping that his previous statement will be ignored. “No use scratching at yourself. It won’t bring her back.”

 

Silence. “Baelfire—“

 

“Don’t call me that.” His voice is harsh, as though he hasn’t used it in some time. He peels his fingers away from the arms one by the one and carefully sets them in his lap, leaning down so that his face is mere inches from Killian’s own.

 

“You lost a girl you loved. I lost more than just that. I lost a _son_.”

 

Killian feels the words bubbling up in this throat, that he knows what that feels like, that he had a son ripped from him hundreds of years ago and he never knew what happened to him until recently because it was you Bae, Milah’s son and maybe he couldn’t do right by her but he damn sure would do right by this boy—

 

He says nothing. Bae heaves a breath and says one more thing: “One hundred and eighty-two days.”

 

Killian catches sight of the tally marks set deep in the stone near Baelfire’s knees, and he feels like he can’t breathe, there is a jungle and a cave and the constant threat of Pan like dampness hanging over his head and a kiss pressed against his lips, hands at his coat, the dizzying moments when he almost lost her because he couldn’t save her, he couldn’t, he couldn’t—

 

There are hands on his shoulders, and then a face shifts back into focus in front of him, skin drawn tight and pale over bones, and those features that give him away no matter how hard he tries not to care.

 

“Don’t think about it,” Bae says when he is sure that Killian is back in the present and can breathe through the knots in his stomach once more. “It gives me panic attacks too.”

 

Baelfire’s eyes slide back out the window, and Killian can tell when it’s time for him to leave.

 

;;

 

There is a woman that Robin brings with him when he visits the castle to see the royal couple. His band is rough around the edges, and Charming insists that there is no one better to give summary of the state of the realm than those who have travelled the length of it.

 

The woman turns out to be Mulan, and she is not a part of the meetings being held for long hours of the day in the council room. Killian does not attend either, and whether it is the curiosity of her new circumstances that draws him in, or the hope of a distraction that Tink still refuses to provide, they end up spending the time together.

 

The distraction does not turn out to be the one he had expected; he realizes that it is probably for the best. There are no flirty lines available on his tongue when he needs them, and no interest in using them if they were there. When he sees Mulan up close for the first time, he sees hurt.

 

She tells him about the one that she left behind, and in turn he bleeds his own poison out onto her skin. Neither of them uses names, but Killian is not fooled, and doubts that she is either.

 

Mulan does not let him drink while they are together, but something about her soothes the ache that the cloudiness of alcohol has been masking so far. She has been at the castle for more than a week now, and Killian recognizes the signs; impending doom, when parchments of battle plans are being carted into the council room.

 

“Why are you not in attendance with the rest of the outlaws?” Killian asks her one day as they meander down the main road in the town, having escaped the castle walls early in the morning. Killian gets the feeling that Mulan has never “meandered” in her life, but she keeps in step with him, and if she is itching to pace more quickly there is no sign of it.

 

“I am trying to focus on doing things that I enjoy,” she replies, ignoring the shouts of shopkeepers eager to draw them into their stores.

 

“Then I would think you would be the first in the doors. You’re a lass who knows her way around a sword.”

 

Mulan shakes her head. “I do not enjoy fighting, I fight to protect the people that I love. I no longer have those people with me, so I now fight because I am capable.”

 

“And those things that you enjoy?”

 

“I have not managed to find them yet.”

 

Killian turns them down a side street soon after, off the path that would lead them straight to the docks.

 

;;

 

Killian knows this is the day Regina will be arriving as soon as he emerges from his room in the morning because the castle suddenly feels as though it is teeming with people. Everything has been polished to a bright sheen, old hallways that have never been used tidied up. He is so busy wondering why she needs all this pomp and circumstance that he nearly runs into straight into Charming.

 

“There you are,” the prince says, decked out in his royal uniform and looking distinctly ruffled. “You’re joining us in council today.”

 

“I’m flattered, mate, but not interested.”

 

“Well that’s too damn bad for you.”

 

He is so much like her in that moment, the blonde hair, the tight jaw, the air crackling around him like he can barely contain his irritation. He looks so much like her.

 

Killian relents.

 

Mulan is there too, he sees, having given in to the princess’s pleadings. The room is packed with people, dwarves and outlaws, fairies and humans, the cricket perched on a magnifying glass and the human-wolves with terrifying animal senses.

 

Regina bursts into the room without being announced. She is as Killian remembers from their first encounters; draped in leather again, skirts billowing as she strides, commanding the attention of everyone in the room without putting in an ounce of effort.

 

The people still immediately, and there is thick tension. Regina has not been in the castle since the first few days back in the Enchanted Forest, choosing to leave for her own palace and spend her days alone, mourning her lost son. Snow and Charming reluctantly let her go against the words of their advisors, and tentatively wished her well.

 

There is movement out of the corner of his eye, and it’s Charming who steps forward first, clasping Regina’s hand in a shake. His lips quirk at her, and Regina blinks, but something snaps, and the crowd begins to settle in once more. Snow hangs back, shoots a brief smile at Regina, and turns away before there can be a response.

 

The meeting is exactly what he had expected: a lot of talk about the problems, the swelling evil on the horizon, the Black Fairy having abandoned fairy magic along with her wand and worked her way around that obstacle.

 

Killian offers no opinions, eyes sliding from one face to another, noting expressions, feeling the wood under his fingers, the cold weight of rings on his hand, listening to the shuffle of feet over the stone floor. Mulan, across the room, picks at the leather binding of her sword sheath.

 

It takes someone bumping into his chair for him to notice that they have been dismissed. The bare bones of advisors and councilors stay seated, discussing amongst themselves, and Killian realizes that he knows nothing about stratagems or plans.

 

He wishes he could bring himself to care. He really needs a drink.

 

In a far corner, Regina has pulled Mulan over and is whispering into her ear, words that must slide deliciously because her face lights up and she places a sincere hand on Regina’s arm before slipping out a side door.

 

He is just about to make his escape when a puff of purple magic appears in front of him, and Regina emerges from the smoke. She smirks at him, and he quirks an eyebrow up at her.

 

“Captain Hook. My, how the mighty have fallen.”

 

He can feel a frown pulling at the corners of his lips. “All relative, love. Seems I’m looking at an Evil Queen no longer deserving of the name. Comes when called, have you been so tamed?”

 

Her smirk morphs into a sneer, eyes flashing, and Killian feels a tiny spark of pride flare up in his chest.

 

“I have come to give the royal couple an update on their beloved daughter. Good news: she’s happily living her life with no memories of you whatsoever. Looks like we needn’t be worried.”

 

He should have known better than to test her. It is a long moment before Killian can make his legs work again.

 

Two hundred and fifty-seven days.

 

;;

 

In the end it is the Crocodile's girl who shifts him. Killian stands, staring at the ship bobbing gently at the end of the dock, gold paint glinting in the sunlight, beautifully carved wood fitting together seamlessly.

 

The woman by his side looks at him, apprehension in her face. “David and Snow insisted. The new beginnings of the royal navy must have a fitting flagship. They didn't have time to show you themselves, so they asked me if I might instead. I'm sorry, I don't know much about ships.”

 

Her voice is strained, and Killian can recognize someone who is trying to busy themselves so they won't have time to sit and remember. It's the opposite of what he has chosen to do. He wouldn't be surprised if the royal couple was attempting to change that.

 

“I have no interest in captaining a ship again, much less one under any sort of employ.”

 

“They made it pretty clear that this isn't a request. Why don't you see how it feels?”

 

His feet move unconsciously, and he finds himself running his hand along the mast, the coils of rope sitting on deck, the wheel at the prow. It’s easy to fall into again. Killian calls back to Belle still standing on the dock, watching.

 

“What’s her name?”

 

Belle smiles, an honest one, and it takes work not to respond in kind. “We’ve named her _Swan Song_.”

 

The deck moves leisurely under his feet. He does not lose his balance.

 

;;

 

Killian finds a note resting on the pillow in his captain’s quarters.

 

 

_You are allowed to have your small bit of happiness. Don’t punish yourself for what could not be stopped._

_–Belle_

He tucks it in the pouch at his waist.

 

;;

 

It has been close to a year since he was last at the helm of a ship this beautiful, but the dance of the waves is still there, the steps not lost to him. Killian does not shield his eyes, even in the glare of the sun bouncing off the water.

 

He can hear the song of the sea, and it sighs all around him, wind ruffling his hair fondly, tugging at his clothes.

 

 _At last,_ she murmurs to him, waves lapping at the sides of his ship. He answers her call for the first time in a very long time.

 

;;

 

The only reason he is not taken with them is that he is out on the water when the kidnapping happens. When he pulls back into the port, Tink is waiting for him, and there is smoke curling from the castle at the top of the hill.

 

Whatever peace he may have found out in the endless stretch of sea evaporates as the fairy flutters out to meet him.

 

“Killian,” she calls, and his heart sinks at the use of his true name.

 

“There isn’t much time. They’re out looking for you, and if they find you there won’t be anything that we can do. It’s time to test out our theory; the journey will be disorienting, but you’ll land on your feet and then you have to find her, you have to make her remember.”

 

“What are you going on about, fairy?”

 

“ _Emma_ , you must find her before it’s too late, find her and bring her back.”

 

Everything slants sideways. He can’t stand up straight, can’t see, can’t even breathe and the _thump-thump_ of his heart sounds like Emma, Emma.

 

“It’s not possible.”

 

“It _is_ , and you would have known that if you had bothered to join us during the meetings. And now I don’t have time to explain it to you, you must find her, and remind her of what she knows in her heart, and bring her back to us. Tell her that her family is in danger.”

 

Tink whips out two bottled potions, one that she shoves into his hand and orders him to drink, and the other that she uncorks and sprinkles delicately over his head. He feels light, like air, and the last thing he sees before it all blurs is Tink’s face.

 

His feet slam into hard ground and his knees buckle. Killian collapses, body stinging all over, and looks up. His senses are immediately assaulted; buildings tower above him, bright and hard in his vision, smells accosting him from all sides, gritty and sour, people rushing by the opening of the alley he seems to have landed in.

 

_You must find her, and remind her of what she knows in her heart, and bring her back to us._

_Tell her that her family is in danger._

;;

 

He knocks on the door that he hopes is hers, softly first, then insistently. And when she throws the door open it feels as though his heart simultaneously leaps up into his throat and sinks down to his stomach. His hand is sweating, his body is flushing, and he can feel the smile on his face.

 

“Swan,” he says. “At last.”


End file.
